Eileen Eika M.

Dela Cruz

POLITICAL LAW

VINUYA VS EXECUTIVE SECRETARY

G.R. No. 162230, April 28, 2010
(Justiciable & Political Questions)

FACTS:
1. Petitioners, members of the MALAYA LOLAS, a non-stock, non-profit
organization registered with the SEC, established for the purpose of providing
aid to the victims of rape by Japanese military forces in the Philippines during
the Second World War, claim that since 1998, they have approached the
Executive Department through the DOJ, DFA, and OSG, requesting assistance
in filing a claim against the Japanese officials and military officers who
ordered the establishment of the comfort women stations in the Philippines.
2. But officials of the Executive Department declined to assist the petitioners,
and took the position that the individual claims of the comfort women for
compensation had already been fully satisfied by Japans compliance with the
San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951 and the bilateral Reparations Agreement
of 1956 between the Philippines and Japan.
ISSUES:
1. Whether or not the Executive Department committed grave abuse of
discretion amounting to lack or excess of discretion in refusing;
a. to espouse their claims for the crimes against humanity and war crimes
committed against them?
b. to espouse their claims for official apology and other forms of reparations
against Japan before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and other
international tribunals?
HELD:
1. Petition lacks merit. This is a foreign relations matter that present political
question. Political questions refer to those questions which, under the
Constitution, are to be decided by the people in their sovereign capacity, or in
regard to which full discretionary authority has been delegated to the
legislative or executive branch of the government. It is concerned with issues
dependent upon the wisdom, not legality of a particular measure. Thus, the
authority for which is demonstrably committed by our Constitution not to the
courts but to the political branches (executive & legistlative).
2. In this case, the Executive Department has already decided that it is to the
best interest of the country to waive all claims of its nationals for reparations
against Japan in the Treaty of Peace of 1951. The wisdom of such decision
is not for the courts to question.
3. Even the invocation of jus cogens norms and erga omnes obligations will not
alter this analysis. Petitioners have not shown that the crimes committed by
the Japanese army violated jus cogens prohibitions at the time the Treaty of
Peace was signed, or that the duty to prosecute perpetrators of international
crimes is an erga omnes obligation or has attained the status of jus cogens.
Erga omnes (Latin: in relation to everyone) is a legal term describing
obligations owed by States towards the community of states as a whole.

Eileen Eika M. Dela Cruz

POLITICAL LAW

Jus cogens (literally, compelling law) refers to norms that command

peremptory authority, superseding conflicting treaties and custom.